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Consolidation is the new norm: Rasmussen

Industry analyst Richard Rasmussen says that the trend in the offset market is increasingly towards consolidation – but it’s not all doom and gloom for the printing industry.

Richard Rasmussen, Ascent Partners

In Ascent Partners’ latest Market Watch report for the month of March, Rasmussen observed a number of consolidations and closures at both the big and small end of town, and cites them as part of a larger trend affecting the offset sector. “Generally speaking the offset market has consolidated over the past five years at the rate of about 10% per annum or thereabouts,” he said.

The closure by PMP of IPMG’s Hannanprint facility in Noble Park, Victoria, as well as IVE Group’s announcement of a “supersite” in Seven Hills, NSW, are evidence of this trend among the major players, Rasmussen says, while the liquidations of WaiveStar and Colony Printing and the closure of Print Dynamics among others show that the ‘little guys’ are not immune. “There’s nothing really all that new in that, it’s become the norm – a continuation of the trends of consolidation and closures in the printing industry,” Rasmussen said.

He stresses, however, that it’s not all bad news – other sectors of the printing industry are performing much better, and aren’t as affected by the rise in consolidation. “Parts of the industry such as wide-format and labels and packaging are doing very well, and there are fewer instances of digital printers closing – typically it’s more in the offset area where the proprietors have not been able to keep up with trends or are at the age where they’re keen to move on,” he said.

Ascent Partners captures this information from industry sources and reports it monthly in the free newsletter, Market Watch. See www.ascentpartners.com.au to subscribe.